Holiday Carriage Ride

This afternoon Helena, Arvin and I went down to the Fairhaven District in Bellingham. Our destination was Village Books, a wonderful independent book store. The place was buzzing. Arvin got a book he'd ordered and even got a discount because this is his birthday month. I popped into the adjacent store, Paper Dreams, to pick up some birthday cards. The owners of both stores, Chuck and Dee, were very much present and made everybody feel welcome. Like I said, I love both of those stores.

After we did our shopping we went downstairs to the Colophon Cafe for a yummy lunch. It was cold out so we were walking briskly to our car when what should trot by but this wonderful holiday carriage. Inside were families with happy children. I grabbed a few quick photos which were blurry because my ISO was a bit low for the gray day. But I decided to use this one anyhow. I used the watercolor filter in my Sony RX100 to give the photo a more painting-like look. I fiddled with it with the detail extractor to enhance the feeling of motion and the poster edges filter to add the posterized look. Take a look at the large version.

The holidays are creeping up. Everybody in our family has agreed to simpler gift giving this year. We go to Dave and Nora's tomorrow to celebrate Christmas early with them before they head to the Las Vegas area to visit with their kids. We'll be celebrating Nora's and Steve's birthdays too. Helena, Steve, Arvin and I are planning a quiet Christmas day together on the 25th. And then on the 31st will be the big party for Arvin. He'll be celebrating his 85th birthday. My how time flies. He was 46 and I was 32 when we first met.